Neighboroo is the easiest way to learn about neighborhoods.

A Neighboroo is someone who knows a lot about a neighborhood or a local area. They are the people you consult to find a new place to live, to figure out what are the "bad parts of town" or to find the "happening places".

A Guroo is someone who is an expert in national or local trends. Usually, they are professionals who study trends for a living either in real estate, business, consumer marketing, or demographics.

Neighboroo

George Johnson reviews Hofstadter's new book -- first announced here almost a year ago.

To get into a properly loopy mind-set for Douglas R. Hofstadter's new book on consciousness, I plugged a Webcam into my desktop computer and pointed it at the screen. In the first instant, an image of the screen appeared on the screen and then the screen inside the screen. Cycling round and round, the video signal rapidly gave rise to a long corridor leading toward a patch of shimmering blue, beckoning like the light at the end of death's tunnel.

Giving the camera a twist, I watched as the regress of rectangles took on a spiraling shape spinning fibonaccily deeper into nowhere. Somewhere along the way a spot of red--a glint of sunlight, I later realized--became caught in the swirl, which slowly congealed into a planet of red continents and blue seas. Zooming in closer, I explored a surface that was erupting with yellow, orange and green volcanoes. Like Homer Simpson putting a fork inside the microwave, I feared for a moment that I had ruptured the very fabric of space and time.

Johnson doesn't really do much to review the book. He describes it as a "condensed" GEB, and it's clearly personal. Are there other reviews now? Yes!

Publishers Weekly gives it a Starred Review:

Hofstadter —— who won a Pulitzer for his 1979 book, Gödel, Escher, Bach —— blends a surprising array of disciplines and styles in his continuing rumination on the nature of consciousness. Eschewing the study of biological processes as inadequate to the task, he argues that the phenomenon of self-awareness is best explained by an abstract model based on symbols and self-referential "loops," which, as they accumulate experiences, create high-level consciousness. Theories aside, it's impossible not to experience this book as a tender, remarkably personal and poignant effort to understand the death of his wife from cancer in 1993 —— and to grasp how consciousness mediates our otherwise ineffable relationships. In the end, Hofstadter's view is deeply philosophical rather than scientific. It's hopeful and romantic as well, as his model allows one consciousness to create and maintain within itself true representations of the essence of another. The book is all Hofstadter —— part theory, some of it difficult; part affecting memoir; part inventive thought experiment —— presented for the most part with an incorrigible playfulness. And whatever readers' reaction to the underlying arguments for this unique view of consciousness, they will find the model provocative and heroically humane.

Booklist also gives it a starred review:

For more than 25 years, Hofstadter has been explaining the mystery of human consciousness through a bold fusion of mathematical logic and cognitive science. Yet for all of the acclaim... [ Read More (0.1k in body) ]

Scientific American: A New Journey into Hofstadter's Mind

"Whoever is against mujahideen is against Islam and they are the enemies of this country," former fighter Abdul Rasul Sayyaf (*), now an influential lawmaker, told the crowd of demonstrators.

...

Youths later marched through the streets of the city, shouting "Death to the enemies of Afghanistan!" and "Death to America!".

(*) Abdul Rasul Sayyaf:

According to the Wikipedia article:

Abdul allegedly arranged the interview in which Ahmad Massoud was assassinated.

According to Global Security:

Sayyaf, a Wahabi Muslim, had a close relationship with Osama bin Laden during the jihad against the Soviets.

BBC offers a photo and a personal account, from 2001:

I ventured west to the district of Afshar, where block after block of shattered housing resembles the ruins of an ancient civilisation.

In 1993, it was the site of repeated human butchery during fighting between a faction that adheres to the Shi'ite Muslim faith and followers of a Saudi backed Mujahideen leader, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf.

Amnesty International reported that Sayyaf's forces rampaged through Afshar, murdering, raping and burning homes.

Now Sayyaf's forces are back in Kabul, a key component of the Northern Alliance army.

In 2004, Foreign Affairs published Kathy Gannon's Afghanistan Unbound:

In 1994, bitter fighting between competing warlords raged throughout Kabul, Afghanistan's capital city. It was a time marked by endless attacks, many of them on civilians. I saw one young boy raise his hand to catch a ball, only to have it sliced off at the wrist by a rocket. A 13-year-old girl, running home to retrieve blankets and clothes left behind by her fleeing family, stepped on a land mine, which exploded and blew off the bottom of her leg. All told, 50,000 Afghans -- most of them civilians -- died in the four-year fight for Kabul, and even more were maimed.

In one particularly grisly attack, five women from the Hazara ethnic group were scalped. Their attackers were not Taliban; this was still two years before that radical Islamist militia took Kabul. The assailants were loyal instead to one of many warlords battling for control of the city: Abdul Rasul Sayyaf.

It's interesting that, according to the Afghanistan Justice Project, Massoud was once Sayyaf's commander:

The Afshar massacre and mass rape in Kabul by Abdul Rasul Sayy... [ Read More (0.5k in body) ]

Afghan warlords in amnesty rally

See also: Way Behind the Music

... artists can "fingerprint" [2, 3, 4] fans ...

... 10 years from now the model for the music business will resemble the patron-artist relationship of the 17th century renaissance ...

In order to ensure that the works they commissioned were of the highest quality, patrons frequently stipulated that artists use only the finest pigments. Rich colors signaled to the viewer that no expense had been spared and reflected the patron's generosity. Artists, on the other hand, tended to place a greater premium on the skill involved in the creation of a work than on the richness of the materials. According to Leonardo, "... colors honor only those who manufacture them, for in them there is no cause for wonder except their beauty, and their beauty is not to the credit of the painter...." The Florentine writer Anton Francesco Doni was even harsher in his criticism of bright colors, arguing that they "deceive, and dazzle the minds of common men who do not have good judgment."

paid placement: ... cold-e-mailed YouTube executives and then worked out a deal to get the "treadmill" video on the front page ...

If "treadmill" is the future of music, you'd best stock up now, and then dive into the back-catalog.

The Future of Music

What is the science behind trust? How does trust build, and how does it break down? While it is much easier to measure transactions than trust, Stephenson models the threshold size for networks which contain key nodal elements such as hubs, gatekeepers and pulse-takers. Through numerous examples and business case studies, these analyses begin to give a good grasp on models for healthy networks. Stephenson closes her talk by looking ahead to the challenges of heterachy, the networking of institutions, which now demands an even greater capacity for trust and understanding.

Social Network Analysis | Dr. Karen Stephenson

Moggridge's new book, Designing Interactions, was recently discussed here.

Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with IDEO co-founder Bill Moggridge. They look at how some of our favorite technology came into being, from the very first laptop right up to the iPod.

Some of you bought the book; any thoughts?

Bill Moggridge, author of 'Designing Interactions'

We want our ideas to spread like wildfire, or to have impact that lasts, but we often forget that different ideas spread differently. A quick look at Digg demonstrates that the easiest way to get Dugg is to have a trivial idea.

The Toxic and the Trivial

Seeing a Clear Channel in the making, NYT comes out against the XM-Sirius merger.

These are not widget makers. Radios carry important discourse and debate — they are vital to the free exchange of ideas protected by the First Amendment. Recent experience shows that media consolidation usually leads to more homogeneous content, politically as well as artistically, and it rarely benefits the consumer or the country.

Tuning In to One Company

Since the end of the Cold War, the United States, NATO, the United Nations, and a range of other states and nongovernmental organizations have become increasingly involved in nation-building operations. Nation-building involves the use of armed force as part of a broader effort to promote political and economic reforms, with the objective of transforming a society emerging from conflict into one at peace with itself and its neighbors.

This guidebook is a practical “how-to” manual on the conduct of effective nation-building. It is organized around the constituent elements that make up any nation-building mission: military, police, rule of law, humanitarian relief, governance, economic stabilization, democratization, and development. The chapters describe how each of these components should be organized and employed, how much of each is likely to be needed, and the likely cost. The lessons are drawn principally from 16 US- and UN-led nation-building operations since World War II and from a forthcoming study on European-led missions.

In short, this guidebook presents a comprehensive history of best practices in nation-building and serves as an indispensable reference for the preplanning of future interventions and for contingency planning on the ground.

The Beginner’s Guide to Nation-Building

Blast from the past ...

Network [4.10.2000 17:04:36]